A lot of wedding proposals happen on Valentine’s Day. A typical online search for “wedding horror stories” turns up stories of terrible things that happened at actual weddings, so it’s not that outlandish to discover that a number of recent horror novels have revolved around weddings.
When The Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen
Harper Perennial, 2021
ISBN-13 : 978-0063035041
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD
( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )
Mira’s high school friend Celine invites Mira to her wedding, which will be held at the recently restored plantation where Mira’s ancestor Marceline was enslaved. The ghosts of the enslaved who were murdered during an unsuccessful rebellion return to haunt the wedding, with brutal, bloody results. McQueen does an amazing job recreating Mira’s memories of her childhood friendship with Celine, who is white, and Jesse, a Black boy arrested for murder who is released after Celine intervenes, and of describing the horrific things that were visited on the enslaved people on the plantation. The racism, brutality, and hopelessness are reminders that horror isn’t limited to the supernatural.
Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Tor Nightfire, 2021
ISBN-13 : 978-1250759412
Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )
When you are ridiculously wealthy and well-connected, and your fianceé wants her wedding at a Heian-era haunted mansion, with the bones of a bride buried beneath, you make it happen. Wedding guest Cassie, our unreliable narrator, is disconnected and depressed, attending at the request of the groom, who is also her ex. Cassie is one of five people at the wedding: they all have the kind of entangled relationships that emerge from a small group dynamic formed in college, and attempting to summon a spirit in a haunted house the night before the wedding is not going to make it easier to get along. It’s been criticized for purple prose and lack of character development, but it is a wild, and vivid, ride.
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
St. Martin’s Press, 2021
ISBN-13 : 978-1250272584
Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )
Jane approaches Dr. Augustine Lawrence with a proposal of marriage. She wants security and is willing to work hard. They plan for it to be just a business deal: no questions, no love, and never a night spent in Lindridge Hall, his family manor. The best-laid plans can go awry, though: the two of them fall in love. Set in an alternate version of England that has elements of both the Victorian era and post-World War II, this starts out structured as a rather predictable gothic romance and ventured into the territory of occultism, as Jane, trapped in the house with the increasingly paranoid Augustine, is abruptly awakened into a world of magical ritual by occultist friends of Augustine’s. They then leave her to deal with Augustine and whatever is causing the disturbances in the house, untethered to reality. The narrative, which was relatively straightforward until then, became mazelike and hallucinatory. There’s significant body horror as well as blood and gore, so be warned. Readers who enjoy the version of occultism in this book might also appreciate Polly Schattel’s The Occultists.
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